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Jose Iglesias still makes amazing plays as Tigers seem right fit

Jose Iglesias, Mike Napoli

Detroit Tigers shortstop Jose Iglesias turns a double play over the slide of Boston Red Sox's Mike Napoli during the second inning of a baseball game at Fenway Park in Boston Monday, Sept. 2, 2013. (AP Photo/Winslow Townson)

BOSTON — At the start of July, a baseball person familiar with the Red Sox was asked whom, if they had to guess, would be starting on the left side of Boston's infield in September.

The answer was Will Middlebrooks and Stephen Drew. The answer was spot on.

Middlebrooks entered Monday hitting .322 since his recall from Triple-A Pawtucket — a framework for Jose Iglesias' return to Fenway Park that should not be overlooked.

Iglesias went 1-for-3 with a double in his first game against the Red Sox on Monday, a 3-0 win for Iglesias' Tigers. He was involved in a pair of double plays, one of them the kind of play that Tigers manager Jim Leyland said can never be practiced.

Most shortstops would have had a chance at only one out on the Dustin Pedroia grounder to the second-base side of the bag in the sixth inning.

"Oh yeah, without question," Leyland said of his belief Iglesias would get just one out. "I didn’t think it was going to go up the middle because I knew someone was covering the bag. You’re not thinking that that play is being made that way. Nobody is."

Shane Victorino, who was on first base, was on the move and Iglesias, playing short, went to cover the bag.

Pedroia hit a grounder sharply back up the middle, just to the right side of second base. Iglesias ranged over, grabbed the ball and tagged Victorino. While still in motion, Iglesias spun and threw to first base. There was no pause in his action.

"When people make plays like that you can’t just practice those, that’s just athleticism, flexilbility," Leyland said, "agility, whatever you want to call it. You can’t just practice a play like that. Somebody tells me they practice a play like that they’re lying. It just doesn’t happen."

Iglesias said it was strange to be back at Fenway Park, where he was cheered when his name was announced. If he has any resentment toward being traded on July 30 in the Jake Peavy deal, he didn't say so.

"I love those guys over there," Iglesias said. "It's nothing personal. It's a business at the end of the day but it was fun to come today here and get the W."

Leyland believes Iglesias will become a good hitter, but acknowledged that he has room to grow. Iglesias has done well at the plate since the deal, with a .292/.344/.360 line.

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"I think what he is offensively is he’s very aggressive," Leyland said. "He's a tough out for a young guy. He swings a little bit too much like a big guy sometimes, but he’s very smart. He knows how to shoot the ball to the other side, to bunt for a base hit. I think he’s going to be a pretty good offensive player. And I don’t want to take his aggressiveness away from him he probably swings too much like a big guy in certain situations. He’s very bright and he’s very instinctive so he’s going to figure it out. He’s got baseball sense."

After play on July 2, Iglesias had a .415/.459/.533 line with the Red Sox. That's an impossible level to maintain. No one could keep that up for a season.

The Red Sox knew that just as everyone else did, the Tigers included.

"Oh, yeah," Sox manager John Farrell said at a Boston event last month when asked if the team felt Iglesias' performance would not be sustainable. "We can't discount what he did in the minor leagues. That was a .230 hitter in the minor leagues, .230 or a .240 hitter throughout the course of his career. So when you're hitting .460 at the big-league level, something is — and just subjectively, a lot of infield hits ... We were all benefitting by it. But, we realized the hard contact, there was no way that was going to be held up to that level."

Iglesias said shortstop is what "what I'm supposed to do" and that he really likes it in Detroit. The two organizations have a "different philosophy," as he put it.

For Iglesias, the Red Sox and the Tigers, then, there's reason to be happy the trade was made, accounting for the reality that the Red Sox can't replace Iglesias' glove.